How Much Is A Military Retirement Worth? Over One Million Dollars – How to Calculate the Present Value of a Military Retirement Pension

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(For those of you who follow the stock market’s performance, the inspiration for this post came seven years ago: March 2009, the bottom of the Great Recession’s markets. Back then I had no clue that someday I’d be blogging about it.)

How Much is a Military Retirement Worth?

The answer is more than just cash flow.

Another way to ask the question is: How much is that pension worth as a lump sum?

Humans aren’t very good at estimating income or inflation adjustments, and emotions always influence our otherwise logical financial decisions.

Unfortunately, an investment that looks like a great deal in a glossy magazine ad can turn out to be “great” only for the seller. A very effective way to analyze a pension’s value is to put the numbers in terms of both the pension’s monthly cash flow and its lump-sum equivalent.

The answer’s format can change a veteran’s decision. The Department of Defense still offers a REDUX Career Status Bonus because many military members (and their families) are tempted by a “big” number like $30,000. But an earlier post showed that the CSB is usually only a good deal for the DoD.

At first, a military retirement doesn’t seem to be worth very much. Even a relatively large pension of $3000/month is only about $100/day.

A soldier just ending their 10th year of service might not be very motivated by the thought that they’ll have to work another 10 years for that guaranteed cash flow of inflation-protected income. Emotionally, $100/day just doesn’t seem worth the sacrifice– even though the payout rises with inflation for the rest of their life.

The challenge behind analyzing a lump-sum question is to figure out how much money has to be invested to yield the pension’s stream of income.

How to Calculate the Present Value of a Military Retirement Pension

Another problem is that no one knows how long the pensioner will live, so it’s difficult to predict how long the pension will be paid out.

Finally, the calculated lump sum has to be invested in a safe and stable asset to make sure that it survives for decades. Unfortunately, the safe and stable assets have a very low yield, so it takes a larger lump sum to produce an income stream big enough to pay the pension.

Accountants and actuaries devote entire careers to studying asset yields, human longevity, and other risks. They calculate the statistical probability that a certain lump sum will be able to pay a particular pension for the necessary number of years.

The good news for pension recipients is that the calculations are much more accurate when the analysis is simultaneously applied to hundreds of thousands of pensions as a group. Even better, the Department of Defense can rely on the number-crunching skills of another giant bureaucracy of inflation-adjusted payments: Social Security.

The mathematical details of discounting an inflation-adjusted annuity are well beyond the scope of this post. There’s not an easy formula to convert that $100/day pension to a precise lump sum. However, there are a few simpler estimates that are reasonably close to the more complicated methods.

The easiest estimate assumes that a military pension keeps up with inflation. This eliminates the more complicated factors of correcting future dollars for inflation. If a military pension keeps up with inflation then the pension’s value in today’s dollars stays constant. The lump-sum value of the pension is the total amount to be received during the rest of the veteran’s life:

Lump sum = (annual pension amount) * (remaining life expectancy)

A 38-year-old veteran receiving $3000/month with a COLA might reasonably look forward to 35 more years of life. The estimate of the present value of their pension would be

The life-expectancy estimate ignores other discounting factors in favor of simplicity and speed. Its main advantage is that a veteran can quickly estimate a lump sum for their own personal expected lifespan. Veterans in good health with long-lived ancestors may decide that they have 40 or even 50 years of retirement, raising the current value of their pension.

Another quick estimate is to assume that the pension is the income stream from a lump sum of Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS). TIPS are an extremely safe and stable asset with built-in inflation protection. The market for buying and selling TIPS is huge and liquid so their prices are fairly accurate.

One flaw of this estimate is that, unlike a military pension, when the pensioner dies there’s still a lump sum of TIPS generating a stream of income. Another drawback is that a TIPS’ maturity (now a maximum of 30 years) is usually less than the pensioner’s remaining life expectancy.

The advantage of this estimate is simplicity and speed:

Lump sum = (annual pension) / (TIPS annual percentage yield)

A January 2009 Treasury auction sold 20-year TIPS at an inflation-adjusted annual percentage yield of 2.5%. So for that $3000/month pension,

Insurance companies could be unable to make annuity payments or even go bankrupt and should be considered a riskier source of annuity payments than TIPS or other government bonds.

One of the “less risky” annuities comes from an agency sponsored by the federal government– the Thrift Savings Plan. TSP annuities are actually purchased from an insurance company and are not guaranteed by the federal government, but the insurance company is presumably charging a smaller fee (to sell a large volume of annuities) and the annuity’s cost would be closer to its value.

TSP annuities are priced each month and do not offer full protection against inflation. The advantage of estimating a pension’s lump-sum value from a TSP annuity is its lower price and the TSP website’s calculator. Assuming that the $3000/month pension is paid to a 38-year-old veteran and limited to 3% annual inflation:

Lump sum (TSP website annuity calculator) =$1.4 million.

$1.4 million is the price that a veteran would pay in the market to buy a TIPS portfolio or an annuity that would yield their inflation-adjusted pension of $3000/month for the rest of their life. Other research analyzes the theoretical cost of annuities and discounted values– only the cost and not its market price. (This includes a research paper on military pensions– the citation is in the book.)

These estimates range from about $1 million to $1.2 million. They’re only theoretical estimates. These annuities can’t actually be purchased like the assets of the other estimates, but they’re a more conservative estimate of the probabilities of longevity and other risk factors.

Let’s get back to the veteran who’s just finished 10 years of service and is wondering if it’s worth staying in the military for another decade. After an analysis of the pension’s present value, which sounds more compelling now: $100/day, or lifetime income of over $1 million?

WHAT I DO: I help you reach financial independence. For free. I retired in 2002 after 20 years in the Navy's submarine force. I wrote "The Military Guide to Financial Independence and Retirement" to share the stories of over 50 other financially independent servicemembers, veterans, and families. All of my writing revenue is donated to military-friendly charities.

If a retiree is 38 that precludes an officer retirement unless there is a very special arrangement. As for enlisted a best case scenario is e-9 and that’s only 5268 over 18 on current payscale. Now do a high 3 or the 40% retiree you cant get to 3k a month. I realize these are example numbers but definitely overly optimistic.

As I say in the post, BossyDude, $3000/month is “a relatively large pension”. Now that you’ve seen three different ways to put a value on a military pension, you can use numbers which you feel are more reasonable.

I think rather than taking a mythological retirement of $3000/mo. you should have taken the average military retiree’s retirement. I served 25 1/2 years and get only about $1800/mo. I am a retired E-7. your article is bogus and makes civilians think we all retire on General Officers’ pay when most of us struggle to make ends meet.

We also get miniscule “cost of living” adjustments, if any, most years.

Doug, an individual told me that there’s away to get my pension in a lump sum instead of the normal method of receiving monthly. To give you a brief history of me, I spent 11 years Active in the Army and the remaining 12 years in the National Guard. So, combined I have over 23 years of service. And, I’m currently 57 and and of course I won’t be eligible for retirement until I’m 60 years of age. So, was he correct by saying that I can request a lump sum and receive now before I am 60? He told me to contact DFAS to see who will hold my retirement pay and request it be transferred to another agency.

Greg, I’m sorry to say that a lump-sum payment is not available under the Final Pay or High Three pension systems.

There is a lump-sum provision in the new Blended Retirement System, but it’s a terrible financial deal. It’s only available to those who’ve opted in to the BRS or joined the military after 1 January 2018.

If you’re referring to your Thrift Savings Plan account, then once you’ve separated or retired from the Guard then you can transfer that to an IRA or another 401(k) plan.

I earn $2566 a month in retirement after deducting taxes, SBP, TRICARE, & VGLI. I receive $2177 a month in VA SC disability. I also use the Post 9/11 GI Bill to receive $2701 a month for 9 months a year. Earning $81,243 a year is not bad!

I retired in 2016. I was an E-7 with 24 years/one month and and get a 10% increase in retirement pay due to earning a Soldiers Medal. I was rated 90% by the VA and I am attending UMUC while residing overseas permanently in Europe.

UMUC pays $2301 per month because their zip code is in the Maryland DC area. It’s a high cost area just like Europe. I also get a “kicker” of an extra $400 per month because I initially enlisted under the Montgomery GI Bill and into a critical skills MOS. Hence $2301 + $400 = $2701. Life is good.

One aspect of the traditional 20 year ‘cliff” vesting model of the defined pension is not so much what the “pension” means to you. For its theoretical value over time is highly subjective, determined by cash-flow, life style choices, even personal health. If you spend and continue to spend X to mainline whatever life style you desire and your military pension is Y, and if X is smaller than Y, then you have a problem. The 1.3, 1.2 million figure using the discount value of money over time is indeed a healthy sum and the envy of all in private industry. But remember that vast number is not on your current balance sheet, its not even in your bank account, nor will it ever be at any one moment in time. That number or value resides in the U.S. Treasury. And like all others matters of that which involve government book keeping, the value of X is what they tell it is at any given time, and that can change.

As we learned in the run up to the retirement reform process in 2014/2015, it is not so much what you may value your military retirement, it is what the DOD, the actuaries from Treasury, and a host of others at the time did. And the result was produced. The old adage does apply, money in the bank is at times the best defense against a rainy day. If the offered the hybrid/TSP option in 1985 when I came in, knowing that I know now, I would have gone in with both feet then, maxed out the contribution limits and then some. The opportunity for financial freedom is there, from E-1 and up, its only a matter of taking the opportunities when presented.

Great write-up as usual, Doug. Again, as you’ve written over the years, having many different streams of income helps buffer and spread the risk. As Peter said, if TSP had been available in 1985, I probably would have been putting more away. Although, I must admit, my financial knowledge at that time was fairly nil. When they did allow access to TSP in 2000, even at the constrained levels for Reservists (we were not allowed to go all in until about 5 years later), I jumped at it and pretty much maxed out what I could. It’s a pretty nice little nest egg now. As a Reservist, (an older one), I won’t see my pension until age 60 (7+ years from now), but you are correct, it’s worth at least $1M+ as an annuity and definitely helps take the pressure off any other financial investments’ requirements for income streaming.

I am intrigued about the new deferred compensation options the military is offering as the 20 year vesting was a big hurdle for many. I lived through the blood bath draw down years…as a Reservist, and we were lucky to get our 50 points a year then. At that point, I was working on developing my civilian career, but enjoyed the break the Reserves offered and just didn’t think to quit….fast forward to 30 years combined active and reserve and a forced ‘retired awaiting pay’ and I’m very glad I didn’t quit. However, that 20 year letter was a key aspect….doesn’t look like that will be so important in the future…and a bit more fair. With TSP and the other options, the decisions regarding military service don’t become as stark as a 20 year letter…should be interesting if the military is able curtail brain drains with the new options.

You’re absolutely right about the “brain drain” if people can take a little extra with them before 20 instead of sticking around for cliff vesting at 20.

The #1 regret of my readers in their 50s (and older) is that they didn’t stick around for that 20. In retrospect, the issues that kept them from serving until retirement eligibility weren’t as bad as they seemed.

Bill, this post title puts the phrase “present value” in quotes because this is not a traditional present value calculation. It uses estimates based on other parameters, and the most reasonable proxy is probably the rate of I bonds. However there is no typical discount rate for this calculation that I’m aware of. As usual for PV calculations, you get to tinker with the discount rate to find your own value that seems reasonable.